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Exciting News! Twitter Party Panelist!!

6 Dec

Guess what? On Thursday night, that’s right… THIS Thursday night, December 8, 2011, I’ve been asked to be a panelist on a Twitter Party with HERSHEY’S and the Mom It Forward blog as part of their GNO (Girls Night Out) Twitter Party events. I’m very excited! I’ve been at a Twitter Party before (as “at” as you can get, sitting on your laptop) but I’ve never been asked to be a panelist before.

I’m not sure what to expect other than lots of fun tips about holiday baking and lots of recipes to share, so if you don’t have a Twitter name yet, go and get one and RSVP at Mom It Forward for the party! Of course, my Twitter name is @WholeBagofChips!
See you then!

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Crafts for Kids: Snowball Snowmen

6 Dec

Yesterday’s post was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Butterballs, oftentimes known as Chocolate Chip Snowballs. It was a recipe that the kids could help out with, by rolling the batter or even by doing some of the measuring of the ingredients or by dumping in the ENTIRE BAG of chocolate chips for the batter. When I bake with my kids I try to find at least one thing for each of the three of them to do.

For today’s kid’s activities, I thought I’d capitalize on the “snowball” aspect of these cookies. Last year another mom, Theresa and I ran the “Brown Baggers” book club for our daughters’ second grade classes. It was a group that met during lunch and recess once a month to hear a story and do a craft related to that story.

This is a great story that leads to endless hours of building "snowmen" inside your home!

We used to alternate planning the activities, each taking a month. One of the months the book that my friend chose was called “Snowballs” by Lois Ehlert. You can find it here on Amazon.com if you’d like to purchase it. (And no, in case you are wondering, I have no connection to Amazon.com at all.) I had actually not seen the book before, but she had it at her house, her kids loved it and it was perfect for the season. She came up with a simple, fun activity for the kids to do to go along with it and they loved it. That’s the activity I’m sharing with you today.

Alexandra and her friend Graycee recently made some snowmen at our house, reminiscent of the ones in "Snowballs."

The storyline in the book will encourage your children to find ordinary objects around your house to turn their “snowballs” into snowmen. They can use paper plates for their snowballs or you can cut white circles (or if they’re old enough, they can.) Some of the items you might want to provide for them for decorations (depending on their ages for choking hazards): buttons, popping corn, stickers, pom poms, sunflower seeds, scraps of paper, rubber stamps and inks, pipe cleaners, feathers, artificial flower petals bottle caps…the possibilities are endless! Your children can make a snowman or woman or an entire snow family, depending on how long you want them to be crafting.

The second graders that we worked with had tons of fun with this story and the super-easy snowman craft that went with it. I hope your children will too! And thanks again to Theresa, for coming up with this activity last year!

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Crafts for Kids: Thumbprint Art

2 Dec

Yesterday I posted my first “Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day” and it was for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies.

I mentioned several ways your kids could help out with the cookie baking if you wanted them to. But, I figure that all that cookie rolling and thumbprinting might get kids into the mood for…..thumbprint art!

Many of you know that for eleven years, until this past August 2011 I was a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, teaching adults and kids how to work with stamps and inks for paper crafting. In fact, in 2004 and 2005 I was one o the top 100 demonstrators in the country! It was a job I loved very much and it combined a lot of the things I love, including teaching and kids. This project today reminds me of my SU days!

A fun thing for kids to do with ink is to use their fingerprints to turn them into drawings. I actually own a whole book about it: Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawing Book and it’s a book I’ve had since I was little.

This is the Ed Emberley book I have at my house.

You can find Ed Emberley’s book as well as several of his others, here on Amazon.com if you’re interested in buying it for your kids.

The cool thing about it is that besides teaching the basics of thumbprint art, it also has seasonal and holiday thumbprint art pages as well! It gives kids hours of fun thumbprint art to keep them busy. I also find with my kids, once you get them going, their own innate creativity keeps them going on their own for hours (which gives you time to mix up more cookie batter!)

a Christmas page from Ed Emberley's book

If you don't want to do Christmas thumbprint art, you can do winter instead!

My personal recommendations when choosing ink pads is: be sure to use water-based ink (if you see Pigment Ink, think PERMANENT INK!!) Water-based ink washes off easily with soap and water or with baby wipes. I also always recommend using a paper tablecloth (Chinette makes them and you can reuse them as long as they’re dry and not ripped too badly.) Paper absorbs the ink that gets on the table, where plastic doesn’t and once it gets on the plastic tablecloth it stays wet and gets on arms, elbows, clothes etc.

Dress for mess when your kids work with ink, and the kids could even wear an apron if you’re nervous about clothing.

You can have your kids make scenes using their fingerprints or they can make Christmas cards, pictures for family members, teachers, friends, etc. My daughter Alex could make an entire book of her artwork. For her everything is made into a book. Your kids could do that as well, make a book, write a story to go along with their fingerprint characters.

Well there you have it, my first cookie and crafts double feature for you! What do you think??

I bet you’re wondering what I will come up with next, right?!

Just wait and see…

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Pumpkin Palooza BONUS: Triple Recipe for Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

18 Nov

Last week I posted a recipe for Pumpkin Cranberry Bread. It’s a recipe from my mom and I make it every year. Last year I think I doubled it and this year I tripled it. It made five regular sized loaf pans and the Pampered Chef mini loaf pan, which is four mini loaves. It was SO easy to triple the recipe and I literally used just one dry measuring cup (the one cup measure) and one wet measuring cup, with a couple of measuring spoons and one big spatula/scraper, so despite yielding so many breads, the cleanup was minimal. I took a ton of photos, so I thought I’d share the triple recipe with you and show you photos of the process as well. Recipe first, photos at the end…

TRIPLE RECIPE for PUMPKIN CRANBERRY BREAD

*I used a lobster pot type of stock pot (we registered for it when we got married, but we never do make lobster!) to do my mixing and one large Pampered Chef scraper. I don’t think my Kitchen Aid stand up Mixer could fit the amount of ingredients in the bowl, nor could it have mixed them.

INGREDIENTS

3 cans Libby Pumpkin (equals six cups of pumpkin, each can is 15 ounces)

6 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups water

12 eggs

1 1/2 cups canola oil

12 cups flour

12 tsp or 4TBL baking powder

3 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp grd. ginger

3/4 tsp grd. cloves

3 packages cranberries

The directions remain the same, but I’m pasting them here anyway. A couple of tips: I mixed all the wet ingredients in the pan together first to make sure the eggs were well-mixed. Then I mixed again after I put in six cups of flour, then added the last six and mixed again. Then I added in my spices…mixed again, and the cranberries…mixed again and then portioned it all out. Super easy.


DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease loaf pan(s). You can either use two large loaf pans or 3 mini loaf pans.

Beat together pumpkin, sugar, water, eggs and oil.

Sift in remaining ingredients except cranberries. Mix just until smooth.

Gently fold in cranberries.

Pour into loaf pan(s) and spread evenly.

Bake in the center of oven for 60 – 70 minutes for large loaves, less time (40-50 minutes for smaller loaves) or until toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. Do not overbake or bread will be dry.

Cool in pan on a rack for 10 – 15 minutes. Turn bread(s) out onto rack and finish cooling.

Bread may be made in advance, covered and chilled for up to four days.(When I make two loaves for us I often save one to eat and keep one to freeze to eat at a later date.)

PHOTOS

Pumpkin is in the pan, ready to go.

All ingredients are mixed, except the cranberries.

Three bags is a lot of cranberries!

I did NOT lick that. Well, that one swipe up the side, I licked that, but the rest...

Ready for the oven.

Done....

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Pumpkin Palooza is coming!

12 Nov

Pumpkin Pie, hot out of the oven

Do you like that, Pumpkin Palooza?? I made it up (or at least I think I did!)

Over the next two weeks I will be posting my favorite Thanksgiving seasonal recipes, one every few days. This weekend I made my first pumpkin pie of the season, and hopefully not my last one! Although I do not make this pie exactly from scratch, I figured I’d kick off Pumpkin Palooza with that recipe, which is straight off the side of the Libby’s Canned Pumpkin can, so that I could also post the picture of it.

Be sure to check back every few days, or even better: subscribe to the blog, so that you don’t miss a single recipe! I’ll finish up in time for Thanksgiving so that you can use them or share them as needed.

I’m thankful to be able to share my family’s recipes with you this Thanksgiving!

Comment and let me know what special recipes you make for the holiday!

Here’s Libby’s Pumpkin Pie recipe. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. grd. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. grd. ginger

1/4 tsp. grd. cloves

2 eggs

1 can Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin (15 ounces)

1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)

1 unbaked 9″ deep dish pie shell

DIRECTIONS

1) Mix sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in small bowl.

2) Beat eggs in large bowl.

3) Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture.

4) Gradually stir in evaporated milk

5) Pour in pie crust

6) Bake in preheated 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.

7) Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 40-50 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

Cool for at least two hours and then serve or refrigerate.

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Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies

3 Nov

I’ve posted this on my personal FB page before, but I chose to move it onto my blog today because I love the simplicity of it. The recipe is easy and the cookies are delish!  Enjoy!

I love this recipe! I found it years ago. I always double it. Below is the single recipe.  Batter is safe to taste– no eggs.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mini chocolate chips ( I never have mini, I used regular. To double, I only use 1 1/2 cups chips. 2 is too many.)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.

Beat in vanilla.

Add in flour and salt. Beat until well combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Divide dough in half and press each half into an ungreased 8″ round cake pan. (I don’t have those so I use a cookie sheet and I roll it onto that.)

Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown (It takes longer for a double recipe, almost double the time. Just keep an eye on them.)

Score shortbread with sharp knife and cut or break into triangles (for round pan, and square for cookie sheet.)

Let pans stand on wire rack for 10 minutes.

*photo of chocolate chips from Google Images Editor at Large

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I’m a Guest Blogger!

26 Oct

You can find me this week on the Good Parent Good Child Blog!

I’m so excited! This week I was asked to be a guest blogger on fellow author/blogger/mom Rebecca Jackson’s Good Parent Good Child Blog.

I was asked to talk about cooking for a large family with a variety of tastes. I provided her with five tips we’ve discovered along the way as well as one yummy recipe that my family loves.

I hope you’ll check it out! You can click on the underlined title above and go right to my post!!

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Apple-Chocolate Chip Bars (formerly known as Apple-Raisin Bars)

19 Oct

Last week we went apple picking, and I’m nearing the end of my half-bushel of apples. I wanted to make a dessert to have tonight when my parents come for dinner. I wanted to make something new, so I decided to try this recipe that I found in the October 2011 issue of Family Circle.

It was fast and easy to make. I substituted chocolate chips instead of raisins because I like chocolate chips better. I liked that there was no white sugar in the recipe, but light brown instead. I’m sure that if you DID choose raisins rather than chocolate chips, it’d be even more healthy with the added fruit.

The recipe was quick and easy to prepare. I used my Kitchen Aid stand up mixer to do the prep. The house smelled delicious the entire time these were baking, and the batter, which I did taste despite having eggs in it, was delicious as well. You can always tell how good a recipe will be by how good the batter is!!

The recipe got rave reviews from my family and three thumbs up from the girls!

This weekend I still have one more apple recipe to try out before I’ve finished up with all of our handpicked apples; a recipe for apple bread from my friend Jenn, but for now, this one is up next!

Here is the recipe. Enjoy!

Apple Chocolate Chip Bars

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups light packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup (one stick) butter or margarine softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1  1 /2 cups diced Golden Delicious apple (this was about 4 medium apples for me)

1 cup chocolate chips (or you could do the original recipe:  3/4 cups raisins)

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Liberally coat a 13x9x2 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, blend together sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla for three minutes or until smooth.

Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture; mix for two minutes or until just incorporated.

Stir in diced apples and raisins and spread into prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting into bars and serving.

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After school snack for a play date

5 Oct

Today my daughter is having a friend over after school. In the title of my post, I put the words “play date,” but with older kids, it’s really just “hanging out” now, not a play date.  I’m slow to change my ways I guess!

I always try to put out something for an after school snack every day, but when there’s a friend coming over, I try to make it extra good. I’m in the mood for something chocolatey (when am I not?) so I decided to make some Monkey Munch this afternoon before I head to pick everyone up. It’ll be a great surprise for my girls and their friend.

I first saw this recipe a long time ago when I used to watch (operative words here: used to watch) John and Kate Plus 8 on TV. Kate had made it as a snack for her kids and it looked positively delicious. Soon afterwards, I was at a friend’s house and she had the recipe so I copied it.

Here it is:

Monkey Munch

9 cups Chex cereal (sneak in wheat Chex, and that’s healthier! I did that a couple of times.)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (yes, this recipe does use peanut butter so be sure to check for allergies!)

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
DIRECTIONS:
In a large microwaveable bowl, combine peanut butter, chocolate chips and butter. Heat in microwave 1 minute. Take out, mix and return for another 30 seconds or until it can be mixes smooth.

Add in vanilla, stir.

If your bowl is large enough, you can put the dry cereal right in that bowl and mix until all cereal is coated. If not, put the cereal in a larger bowl and pour the chocolate mix right over it. Stir until completely coated.

Put into a large ziploc bag and add confectioner’s sugar. Zip sealed, and shake it all about (you do the hokey pokey) until the sugar coats everything.

Spread onto a large cookie sheet to cool.

Store in airtight container.

 

*Photo of chocolate chips taken from Google Images Editor at Large

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Old Fashioned Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

30 Sep

Best.Banana.Bread.Ever.

As I begin moving all my chocolate chip recipes over from my Facebook Page to here, I thought I’d move this one over first. This recipe is by far the best banana bread recipe I’ve ever had and it was given to me by my cousin Tina. The secret is the cinnamon and sugar that she sprinkles on the tops of the breads before baking.

I love the smell that fills my house when I make this bread and I think of Tina and how she’s so much more than a cousin to me, she’s a wonderful friend as well. That’s why I chose this recipe to be the first chocolate chip recipe that I posted on my new blog. This one is dedicated to Tina and to good friends.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2T milk

1 1/2 c. mashed bananas (I use two.)

I add in chocolate chips, of course, about 2/3 cup or so.

Directions:

Mix all ingredients and pour into greased glass loaf pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Lower to 300 degrees and bake for an additional 45 minutes.

 

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